Tag Archives: Odissi

My blog describes itself as celebrating excellence in the less discussed. I have usually discussed comparatively unsung heroes such as Madhukar Rajasthani or Lucila Pacheco or highlighted the unsung works (Utkala Bhramanam) of famous creative geniuses or comparatively lesser discussed aspects of some of them (Kavichandra or Ravi).

Sangeeta Sudhakar Balakrushna Dash does not quite belong to any of those categories. Not only is he popular across Odisha; unlike, say, Kavichandra, his work and his contribution is well-acknowledged by people from Shyamamani Devi to Lopita Mishra. He is everyone’s Sir.

Yet, on his birthday, there is little news about any celebration.Media has almost no coverage except that of the awards announced in his honour by a Foundation named after him. However, that itself is not surprising about Odisha and Odias. And I do not want to go into that aspect in this post. I have already done enough of that in my post on Kavichandra.

What I wanted to highlight, on the other hand, is this: despite all the acknowledgement about his contribution to Odia music and despite the huge respect for him as an artist and an individual, we (that is most common Odias), still know very little about the immense talent (ପ୍ରଚଣ୍ଡ ପ୍ରତିଭା) that Pandit Balakrushna Dash possessed. The same is true about about many of his direct and indirect contribution to Odia music.

This post is not about measuring/analyzing his entire contribution. It will be a presumption on my part to even try doing that. All I will do here is to highlight a couple of lesser discussed/known aspects of his numerous contributions, without any claim whatsoever about the importance of these aspects vis-a-vis other known/unknown and acknowledged/unrecognized aspects of his music. I must admit that the headline is not quite apt for the post; a better suggestion is more than welcome.

First, let’s attempt to understand his music a little better. What kind of music is Pandit Balakrushna Dash’s music? Especially if he is so many things to so many people: a great performing virtuoso himself; a popular composer of the masses; a leading innovator; and a revered guru.

We all know that it is Pandit Dash who shaped/established what has come to be known as the Kataki style/school of Odissi singing, known for the importance that it attaches to bhava (mood), as compared to the dominance of layakari in the Puri school led by Simhari Shyamsundar Kar and the gamak-pradhan style of Dakhini school (of Tarini Charan Patra and others) ostensibly influenced by the Carnatic style.

Apart from the subtle musical differences, what does it translate to, practically? That becomes clear if we look at the repertoire of the songs that Pandit Balakrushna Dash is famous for. Despite singing traditional Odissi, Champu and Bhajans written by the medieval poets, his signature tunes are not those but a Bitilata jamini; a Nayana sunayanare; maybe, to a lesser extent Aakula rajani pahi jae... All these are in modern Odia language, written by modern Odia poets. The first two are by Kavichandra Kalicharan Pattnaik while the last one is by Narayan Prasad Singh.

Listen to Bitilata jaimini carefully and you are bound to notice the influence of Ka karoon sajni, one of the most well-known thumris of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, who was Pandit Dash’s guru. While the influence of his training in Hindustani music (and thumri in particular) is clearly visible, a discerning listener of thumris and Odia music would notice that Pandit Balakrushna Dash’s own singing had little similarity with the Punjab ang (full throated, faster tempo) thumri style sung by Khan Saheb. In fact, I often feel traces of Purab angthumri when I am listening to him, though the uniqueness of his Odissi style is clear. It must be said that the bhava in Odissi music is more about the stress on the mood of the entire lyric rather than a lot of emphasis on a few words. So, Odissi compositions are full length songs and not just three-four lines for music to ride on, unlike in most of thumris.

Pandit Balakrushna Dash’s evolution could be compared more with his mentor R C Boral, whom he assisted for some time in Kolkata and who, despite having strong background in classical music, is today identified as one of the founding fathers of Bengali (and even Hindi) film music. Pandit Balakrushna Dash, surely, is one of the two founding fathers of Odia film music in particular and modern Odia music in general (the other, of course, is Pandit Bhubaneswar Mishra, with whom he scored music for the 1954 Odia film, Kedar Gouri and 1957 movie Bhai Bhai, before going solo in Sri Loknath in 1960). And like Boral and Sachin Dev Burman, Pandit Balakrushna Dash himself rarely sang in movies despite being the most prolific composer of Odia film music in the 1960s. He sang less than ten songs in films in the entire two decades of 50s and 60s.

In short, not only was Pandit Ballakrushna Dash doing his experimentation, he was very clear about what exactly he was trying to achieve. That becomes even clearer when we carefully examine his selection of songs. While others kept to Upendra Bhanja, Gopalakrushna, Kavisurya, Abhimanyu Samant Singhar, Dinakrushna and Banamali; Pandit Balakrushna Dash was the principal voice for the songs of Kavichandra, who himself was a great experimentalist and to whom goes the credit of ushering in modernity in Odia music and theater. Just listen to these songs — Bitilata jamini,Nayana sunayanare, Patha anai jhuri, Tore jhuri sangata…and you will appreciate what I am saying. They were all songs that carefully transformed us to modernity while keeping the base of our tradition.

And with what superb elan, Pandit Balakrushna Dash composed and sang them? The idea here is not to rake up a controversy. But just listen to Nayana Sunayanare and listen to Abhi na jao chhodkar, scored by Jayadev for Hum Dono, more than a decade later…and you will never ever say Bollywood never got its inspiration from Odia music!

Though I am not sure about the fact, apparently Bimal Roy had offered Pandit Balakrushna Dash to score music for his films. But Pandit Dash did not like leaving Odisha and settling in Bombay. If that is true, that opens up yet another aspect of this great individual.

Another aspect of him that needs a mention is that while he was singing/teaching Odissi and composing for films, he never forgot the palligeeti. In fact, he popularized it. His Asa jibana dhana mora pakhala kansa is an anthem; probably as popular as a Bitilata Jamini. Here too, combination of his music with Kavichandra’s lyrics was a winner. Another such combination, Chaiiti ratile mahula katirewas also very popular. In fact, Asa jibana dhana, along with Mudhi nadia and Chaka pari basi tha—the trilogy of songs celebrating traditional Odia food—are today seeing renewed interest among Odias, as many, especially those leaving outside crave for the food.

Among his lesser known works is a beautiful album called Geeta Bhratruhari, released by Saregama in the 90s, in which he set into tune a selection of songs from the Odia translation of Bhratruhari’s Shatakatrayi, in traditional Odissi style. He himself sang a beautiful song, Naba jaubani e, one of the most explicit in the album, from the Shrungara Shataka. The translation was by late Janaki Ballav Pattnaik.

The contribution of Pandit Balakrushna Dash cannot be emphasized enough in a post like this. I promised not to get into this but it is difficult to resist asking this question: when will we learn to respect our talent? On one hand, all of us are very sensitized to the demand of Odissi music being accorded classical status. On the other, we do not even care for stopping for a moment and pay our tribute to the greatest name in Odissi music in modern times. And we blame everyone other than ourselves for our problems!

In August 1995, I and one of my friends, still fairly new in Delhi, rented a two-room flat in South Delhi. Both of us had just started working. As we moved to the flat, I found a full sheet of newspaper—if I remember correctly, it was Times of India—pasted on the wall of what would be my room. The previous tenants—young bachelors like us—had most likely used it to protect the hanged clothes from the paint of the wall.

What caught our attention was a headline in bold font, of an interview of dancer Indrani Rahman: Oriyas are so parochial. My friend, whose parents hailed from Varanasi but who was born and brought up in Odisha, took a strong offence to this. He would—like many non-Odias who have stayed in Odisha for long do—always defend Odisha and Odia whenever anyone said anything against the state and its people.

“Calm down,” I said, “I fully agree with her observations.” By that time, I had read the entire piece.

“It is just that she has drawn a completely wrong conclusion from those observations,” I told him. Odias are often described as lazy, non-enterprising, and even conservative by some; but rarely are they labeled parochial or xenophobic.

It is important to understand what made Rahman make such a drastic conclusion. She had complained fairly bitterly that her contribution to popularization of Odissi dance and its recognition as a classical dance form had not been recognized enough by the people and government of Odisha.

It was not untrue at all. One can well understand the anguish.

Not only was Indrani Rahman the first well-known classical dancer to demonstrate the beauty of Odissi before a Delhi audience way back in 1958, she actively worked in the background to facilitate the meetings and demonstrations of the form which ultimately led to the recognition of the dance form as classical by Sangeet Natak Akademi.

The only point where she erred is that she assumed the lack of her recognition in Odisha was because of her not being an Odia. In other words, she assumed that those who belonged to the state must have been very well recognized and honored.

Alas! If only it was remotely true!

Rahman was surely one of the top 5-6 individuals whose efforts should be acknowledged and hailed for the recognition of Odissi. But what about honoring the person who played the single most important role in that? Unfortunately, there is hardly anything that the state has done to acknowledge his contribution to Odissi. And that man, unlike Rahman, was a full-blooded Odia.

The Apathy
We Odias never get tired of boasting about the ancientness of our culture, our language, our dance, our music and of course our architecture, often resorting to a direct comparison with those of Bengal, our neighbor.

Many of us like to believe that the better recognition of Bengali language, music and culture—as well as the reputation of Bengalis as a people of refined taste—is entirely due to consistent lobbying and distortion of facts. Our logic rests on the argument that even though Odia music and language are far older than Bengali music and language, if Bengali enjoys far better recognition today, it must be due to propaganda!

This is strange logic. As it is now being widely accepted, Odisha’s music indeed is far older than Bengal’s music. Odia’s recognition as a classical language puts to rest any doubt that anyone might have about Odia being an older language, than not just Bengali but most Indo-Aryan languages in existence today.

But what has that got to do with how it is perceived today?

A language or a culture is not a static thing. The current vibrancy of a language, a music or art is not dependent on how old it is but how the current generation and the past generations have preserved, enriched and patronized it. If Bengali music is far better recognized outside Bengal, it is because of the contribution of creators and patrons of that music over the years, not because of when the tradition started.

Of course, the deep resentment against Bengali in Odisha has its own reason. It comes largely because of the unsuccessful but vigorous attempt by a section of Bengalis serving in Odisha during the British period to push Odia into oblivion, by trying to establish that Odia was not a separate language.

But the image of Bengali as a rich and sophisticated language or Bengalis as a community with refined taste today is not because of such narrow-minded people; rather it is because of the sincerity and hard work done by a few great souls. It is also because of how the society in general contributed towards it and cooperated with these cultural leaders.

The most important of such personalities, of course, is Gurudev Ranbindranath Tagore—an extra ordinary individual who combined creativity and sensitivity with great vision. A genius, Tagore not just created great poetry and music, but built and nurtured an environment which encouraged people to indulge in creative pursuance, in an open environment. He also challenged the conservative tradition and encouraged Begalis to continuously interact with outside traditions in art and culture as well as with creative people outside. This not just helped enrich Bengali culture; it exposed outsiders to it. This experimentation arguably contributed most significantly to the rise in esteem of Bengali art and culture, in the eyes of the outsiders.

Bengalis never fail to acknowledge this great contribution by Tagore. In fact, Robi Thakur, as he is called in Bengal, is part of the collective psyche and culture, as much as Durga Puja and fish curry.

Odisha’s is a case study in contrast. Take Odissi itself. All of us are so proud of it. Yet, few know the contribution of people who shaped it in the early days and established it in the world stage.

Well, the lobbying with Sangeet Natak Akademi was spearheaded by many Odias and non-Odias (like Rahman) in Delhi but most of the core research for this was led by one individual, whose powerful lecture accompanied by a demonstration convinced the learned audience about its classicism.

That person was Kavichandra Kalicharan Patnaik.

Kavichandra who? I was actually asked by someone of my generation (born in the 70s). And you can well imagine about today’s generation. While many have heard his name, they are not sure what he has done (“kavichandra, must be a poet”).

Kavichandra may or may not be as creative as Tagore. But arguably, he has contributed to more aspects of Odia culture than probably even Tagore has done in Bengal. The idea is not to compare the two individuals but to show the way they have been treated by their respective communities.

I do not mind saying, without the fear of any exaggeration watsoever that no one in modern Odisha has contributed to so many facets of Odia culture—Odissi dance and music, Odia literature, Odia theater, Odia modern music and Odia cinema—as Kavichandra has done. And his involvement with all these areas have been in various roles—a creative composer/creator, a performer, a professional entrepreneur, a researcher and above all as a teacher/trainer.

Without getting into too much of details, here is a brief overview of his contribution.

He worked with various groups to create the standard postures and rules of modern Odissi dance

He visited different conferences to establish that Odissi, as a music, is not just classical but is very different from both Hindustani and Carnatic music.

He named Odissi. David Denen, an American scholar, who has done extensive research on naming of Odissi, has concluded, after referring to half a dozen scholars, that it was Kalibabu who named Odissi. And the name itself was a master stroke. Not only did it secure its Odia connection forever, but it also created a classical aura for it, which would not have been in a generic adjective like Odia.

It is his powerful lecture, accompanied by demo, that convinced everyone including famous Indologist and dance critic, Dr Charles Fabri that Odissi is a classical dance form. Indrani Rahman worked closely with him and was trained by his disciple Guru Deba Prasad Das.

He established the modern theater culture in Odisha. His Odisha Theaters was the first professional theater group in Odisha.

He was the first to experiment with modern themes in theater and music. A playwright and lyricist par excellence, he wrote on traditional themes as well as contemporary social themes and popularized them.

He was a pioneer in modern recorded music from Odisha. He himself and his protégé Sumati Devi recorded a number of songs for HMV

His association with early Odia films is a subject by itself. He not just wrote lyrics for many early movies such as Lalita, Rolls-28, Kedar Gouri and Dasyu Ratnakar, he scored music too in one movie, Naari. His association with Odia cinema continued well into the 60s, when he wrote for movies such as Manika Jodi, Ghara Bahuda and Kie Kahara, the second movie for Akshaya Mohanty as a composer. He wrote the story for Rolls-28, script for Jayadeba and co-directed and acted in Nari

Some of the songs written by him such as Asa jibana dhana mora pakhala kansaa (sung by both Balakrushna Dash and Shyamamani Devi) are milestones in popularity of Odia palligeeti. Here are some of the recorded songs written by him that are available online.

He even dabbled with recording in Odisha by establishing a recording company in Cuttack.

He tried his hand at publishing a full-fledged music journal, probably the only such journal to be published in Odia ever.

His direct disciples and proteges—Sumati Devi and Angurbala in music, Deba Prasad Das and Indrani Rahman in dance and actors like Samuel Sahu (Babi), Priyanath Mishra (Pira) and Gloria Mohanty who excelled in theater and cinema—too contributed immensely to their respective fields.

In short, whatever could be imagined in all these areas, Kavichandra has done that. While there have been great poets or dramatists, singers or composer, researchers or gurus, there is no one in modern Odisha who has contributed so much to such a diverse set of areas in Odia culture.

Yet, his contribution has gone largely unrecognized. Believe it or not, the following statements are true. I will be more than happy to be proven wrong.

There is no Odissi institution named after him.

There is no major award in Odissi music or dance which is presented in his honor.

There is no major institution or award in his name in the entire gamut of creative fields he was active in, some of which I have discussed above.

If this write-up is to be believed, then there is conscious effort to erase his name from the history of Odissi music.

Kavichandra Kalicharan memorial at Cuttack. This is where he lived a good part of his life

The entrance to the house.

I have deliberately not talked of his financial condition etc. In many places across the world, great artists and creative people often die in penury but after their death, they are recognized and honored. That is not the case with Kalibabu.

Compare what Tagore has done for Bengal and Kavichandra has done for Odisha. And then, see what Bengalis have done to Tagore and what Odias have done to Kavichandra. And you will probably never again complain about Odia not getting enough recognition outside.

If we do not honor our own tradition and people, how can we expect others to do that for us?

What Indrani Rahman inferred about Odias may not be correct per se but the reality is not far more encouraging than that.

As for myself, while I never really blamed Rahman for her conclusion, the Odia in me was too sensitive to allow that paper to remain there after my leaving. Though it remained there for all the four years that I stayed there—just to keep reminding me of the bitter truth—I could not resist tearing it off when I moved out.

Finally, we have a Bollywood movie centred around Odissi.Desire: The Journey of a Woman, is a new Indo-Chinese movie that revolves around Gautami, an Odissi dancer, portrayed by Shila Shetty. The male lead role is played by a Chinese actor Xia Yu who falls in love with the dancer during one of her visits to Malaysia for a program. The movie stars Om Puri, Jaya Prada, and a host of other Indian actors. Produced by Shilpa’s mother, the movie has been directed by R Sarath, with music by Shankar-Ehsan-Loy and background score by Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, the classical guitar maestro.

The Odisha connection comes in form of an Odissi dance sequence enacted by Shilpa Shetty and Jaya Prada, to the Odissi song, Shyama lagi mu pagali, penned by noted Odia poet Gopalakrushna Pattnaik; and also, one of the two choreographers for the movie being Ratikanta Mohaptra, noted Odissi dancer and the son of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra.

I am happy that finally Odissi has caught the imagination of filmakers. But I am also apprehensive that like some other such efforts in the past, most notably, the movie Asoka, it does not do a wrong portrayal of Odisha, Odias and their culture. The reason for my apprehension is that the no Odissi musician is involved in the music of the movie. While I have all the respect for both the S-E-L team and Pt Bhatt, Odissi music has its own distinct characteristics and to try it out on a global scene without the involvement of an accomplished Odissi musician may be a litte too much of an adventurous experimentation.

Also—it is my personal opinion, though—putting Odissi in the centre stage without that extremely endearing face of Kalia (Lord Jagannath)–is not a great sign. The movie has not been shot in Odisha at all. And that is okay. Our art should not be restricted to the geographic boundaries of the state, but to dissociate Lord Jagannath from Odissi is inexcusable. I did not notice it anywhere in the promo and website of the movie. I just hope that it is there in the actual movie.

I am sincerely hoping that my apprehensions are proved wrong and the world sees Odissi in all its glory, especially that it has been choreographed by no other than Ratikanta.

Shyamanuja helps people explore and decide on business ideas, markets and opportunities in IT, new media, open data and B2B marketing. His passions include books, music and Odia culture. This blog is a reflection of that passion.